Sailing across Biscay isn’t something to be taken lightly. Firstly, shortly after leaving Camaret, there’s the Raz de Sein – a ferocious piece of water with very strong tides and dangerous overfalls. Timing is everything; you need to get through it at slack water. It’s a very scary place.

The first leg is actually two legs:

Part 1 – from Southampton to Roscoff, France – about 170 miles across La Manche (English Channel). Depending on the weather in North Biscay we either going to carry on into Biscay Bay or leave the boat at Roscoff marina, fly back home and wait for the right weather. The northern part of the Biscay has some rather dangerous areas, we are crossing them only at the right combination of tides and weather. The trickiest part are Chenal du Four and Raz de Sein

Part 2 – from Roscoff to San Sebastian – again, depending on the weather we can either go straight to Spain (350 miles to Basque Country) or sail along the French coast and maybe make a couple of port calls (about 420 miles).

Can’t give you any dates for this trip – everything depends on the weather. The Kat should be ready to sail at the end of April. We can start as soon as we have 5-7 days good forecast for Biscay. The best days tide-wise to leave Roscoff and sail Chanel du Four and Raz de Sein are 4th and 20th of May 2017. If the weather is Ok we’ll be leaving Roscoff on the 3rd or 4th of May. It’s 3-5 days sailing to San Sebastian and we need to be there by the 3rd of June to start Leg 2 – across North Spain!